


no more nor less

by fatalize



Category: No. 6 (Anime & Manga), No. 6 - All Media Types, No. 6 - Asano Atsuko
Genre: Alternate Universe - College/University, M/M, References to Shakespeare
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-03-12
Updated: 2017-03-12
Packaged: 2018-10-03 08:17:56
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,889
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/10240073
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/fatalize/pseuds/fatalize
Summary: Nezumi has decided to confess his feelings to Shion after Safu suggests he should. He meets Shion in the library to study Shakespeare, and...?





	

**Author's Note:**

> This fic came about from me procrastinating on reading King Lear (again). For whatever reason it's always hard for me to get into it (probably because Lear's a dick), but I've always liked this line of Cordelia's that I reference below, and it reminded me of No.6 (why? who knows) so I decided to play around with it. And what better way to get motivated for schoolwork than having these two nerds discuss Shakespeare with underlying sexual tension. Anyway, it's silly, but I hope you enjoy it.

“Unhappy that I am, I cannot heave  
My heart into my mouth. I love your majesty  
According to my bond, no more nor less.”

—William Shakespeare, _King Lear_ , Act I Scene I.

* * *

 

            Nezumi’s never been one to be speechless. He’s wielded words like well-sharpened knives, razor-fine and to the point. He’s kept them like spare change in his pocket, ready to exchange them in order to persuade and bribe. Words have been his tools, his means of survival, from the lines he’s memorized as an actor to the persuading coercions he’s used on others to get what he wants.

            Yet, more often than not, he finds himself dumbstruck when it comes to Shion, the boy with endless questions and why-nots and challenging optimism. And now that Nezumi’s decided to confess to him he finds himself not only at a loss for words but with no idea where to begin.

            After all, more times than not, _he_ is the one being confessed to; confessors, from fanboys to classmates, would hand him love letters, make declarations of love. “Please go out with me!” she says. “I would be honored if you’d read this,” he says. And each time Nezumi would have a speech prepared, would politely but obstinately turn them down, maybe even brush their chin with his fingers and give them a coy smile to charm them if they were the stubborn type.

            Now that he’s in their shoes, he’s feeling far less confident.

            On second thought: maybe he just shouldn’t confess to Shion at all. Nezumi stuffs his notebook in his bag and tosses in some books for class and considers this option. It’s not like he’s obligated to tell Shion how he feels just because he feels it, and Shion might reject him anyway. He slips on his boots. If the chances of losing are higher, then it’s not a risk worth taking.

Nezumi’s almost convinced himself of abstaining and saving himself the embarrassment until he remembers the conversation he had with Safu the other day. Or rather, not a conversation, but a one-sided order:

            _“You have to tell him you like him.”_

            Nezumi stared at her perplexed, not at a loss for words but silent while trying to find which of the many phrases that came to mind to throw back at her: _What do you mean “like”?—You don’t know that. I never told you.—I don’t like him.—I thought you liked him, so what gives?—Keep your nose out of my business._

            He ended up saying: “How’d you know?”

            “Puh-lease.” Safu put her hands on her hips, eyebrow raised, a do-you-think-I’m-stupid expression ingrained in every inch of her face. “You’re _so_ obvious.”

            That threw Nezumi off for sure; he always thought himself to be a private, well-guarded person. The fact that someone could presume to see through him would have made him angry, had it not been his neuroscience-major friend who was scarily skilled at reading people.

            He was annoyed though, and he’s not especially fond of being told what to do.

            “If it’s _so obvious_ ,” he mocked, “why didn’t you rush to confess first? Your precious Shion is going to get taken away, and you’re willingly letting it happen.”

            Nezumi failed to get under her skin though, as Safu didn’t miss a beat as she rolled her eyes and said, “Been there. Done that. Not a chance. Anyway, I’m doing this _because_ I love him, and I want him to be with someone who I think would be good for him. Now, are you gonna stop stalling and being a baby or what? I’m trying to help you.”

            Totally, completely shut down. Not only did she perfectly counter his attempt to use her feelings against her, she also gave him her blessing and complimented him to boot. Although she did add a dig in at the end. Regardless, he agreed and gave in, because she was right, and they were friends and she was trying to help, and her approaching him about this gave him a small hope that maybe Shion said something to her and he’d have a chance at his feelings being reciprocated.

            Nezumi opens the door to his dorm and makes his way down the hall. He’s going to the library to study with Shion anyway, so he’ll just see how it goes: act cool, casual, let the conversation progress naturally, and if it happens, it happens. If it doesn’t, it doesn’t, and Safu can’t blame him for that. Although she could, and probably would, but that doesn’t matter.

            Mostly he feels lame for overthinking so much. _Look at me, letting a crush get to my head like this,_ he berates himself as he opens the university library’s front door. _We’ll just study. Feelings are irrelevant. I’ve been attached to no one for a long time, and I have no problems letting it stay that way._

            But then—“Nezumi!” Shion calls, and he’s waving at him from a table towards the back behind the shelves, and he’s got that unguarded innocent grin, his shock of white hair bright against the backdrops of brown, his body language open and inviting, a warm and innocuous aura surrounding him, and— _zing_ —Nezumi’s heart shoots up his throat, and he has to cough a few times before he’s composed enough to say, “I hope you weren’t waiting long.”

            “I was waiting. For twenty minutes. Did you forget to set your alarm again?”

            Nezumi checks his watch, realizes that Shion’s right—they’d agreed to meet at 10 AM, and it’s already 10:21. Nezumi thinks back to how he was spaced out before, lost in thought and kept mixing up books or putting his boots on the wrong feet. There’s no way he could tell him the reason for that though, so instead he takes the seat across from him and says: “Yeah, I forgot. Sorry, my bad.”

            “No problem,” Shion replies, sweeping it away effortlessly with easy forgiveness. “I wanted to try this on my own first anyway, but I’m having a little trouble.” Shion pushes a book across the table, and Nezumi recognizes the title immediately: _King Lear_. Not his favorite of Shakespeare’s, but decent.

            He and Shion are taking a tragedies course together this semester; they’d met in another literature course, Modern Poetry, which is also where he met Safu. The two science students had a bit of a harder time with the material than he did, so he took to tutoring them. Safu caught on quicker and often didn’t need help after a while, and while Shion was smart they still made plans to study together a lot, and fairly soon it became routine to meet up with Shion in the library and study.

            Of course, they hung out otherwise too—but the library was their guaranteed time to be together every week.

            Nezumi takes the book in his hands, flips through the pages, and asks, “So where are you stuck?”

            Shion lifts his hands to his hair, running his fingers through, and replies sheepishly, “…Act I, Scene I.”

            “Seriously? You may be a beginner, but you’ve read _Hamlet_ before. It should be getting easier.”

            “Well.” Shion starts, looks at Nezumi, then looks at anything but Nezumi. “You acted in the school’s version that one time, so seeing it performed helped. And I liked your performance so much”—Shion looks up now, directly meeting Nezumi’s eyes—“that I didn’t really read any other lines.”

            There it is—Shion’s doing that thing again where he makes no sense, and Nezumi is stupefied for a moment. He’s complimenting him, but to say that his performance was so good that he didn’t even want to read the play doesn’t make any sense. Wouldn’t a good performance inspire someone to read the whole work? Nezumi doesn’t know what to do with that, so instead he jokes, “I was that impressive as a lady, huh? Ophelia doesn’t have many lines.”

            “But she sings,” Shion counters. “Though you could have been anyone and I would have loved it.”

            “I should’ve gotten the part of Hamlet, then, so you would’ve read more of the play.”

            “ _Any_ way,” Shion says, in that disgruntled and graceless way that’s so like Safu it’s obvious they’re childhood friends, “that’s in the past. I still need help with this one. Like first of all, what’s ‘propinquity’ mean?”

            “If you read the footnotes like a good student, you’d know already. It says right there: ‘blood relationship.’”

            “I don’t think that’s its actual definition. And besides, how do you say ‘Gloucester’?”

            “That’s irrelevant. And so’s the pronunciation. You just need to get an idea of what’s going on. Here.” Nezumi stands up and moves into the seat next to Shion; it’s easier to look at the book this way than from across the table. Nezumi points to one of the lines. “They’re talking about Lear splitting up the kingdom.”

            “I got that.”

            Nezumi’s lip twitches into a smirk. “So you’re not as thick as you look.”

            Shion pouts in that adorable way of his that makes Nezumi love to tease him. “Yeah. Anyway. Here they’re talking about Edmund being an illegitimate child.” Shion’s finger brushes by Nezumi’s to the section below. They’re close, leaning over the book together, and Nezumi wants to shut the book and say, _Who cares about Edmund or Gloucester anyway?_ and part of him wants to confess right now, and the other part of him wants to leave immediately.

            But instead he says: “The important part of this scene is the game Lear devises. The daughters have to proclaim their love to him in order to inherit a piece of the kingdom.”

            “Inheritance through love, huh. That sounds like it could be nice.”

            “Maybe, if they were genuine. You see, Goneril and Regan only pretend and exaggerate so they can get daddy’s riches.”

            “When you put it that way.” Shion leans closer to the page, examining the lines. Nezumi admires the way he looks so studious, so focused, when Nezumi is so not. And Shion reads zip-quick, taking it all in at a remarkable speed, as he soon says, “I wonder why he thinks they love him just because they say so. It’s so obvious they could be insincere, treating it like it's a contest.”

            Nezumi’s lips quirk into a smile again. “You’re quite the Cordelia. That’s the point, and Cordelia figures that out right away—let’s try reading some lines. Sometimes it’s easier reading aloud, since they _are_ plays, after all.”

            Shion nods. “Alright.”

            Nezumi clears his throat and begins reading Lear’s lines to Cordelia: “‘Now, our joy, although our last and least, to whose young love the vines of France and the milk of Burgundy strive to be interessed, what can you say to draw a third more opulent than your sisters? Speak.’”

            Shion looks at Nezumi. Blinks once, twice. “Wow. That was amazing.”

            “Speak,” Nezumi prompts again.

            Shions blinks a few more rapid flutters and casts his eyes on the page now. “‘Nothing, my lord.’”

            “‘Nothing?’”

            “‘Nothing.’”

            “‘Nothing will come of nothing. Speak again.’”

            “‘Unhappy that I am, I cannot heave my heart into my mouth. I love your majesty according to my bond, no more nor less.’”

            “Well, that was pretty flat. But you get the idea.”

            Shion ignores Nezumi’s comment and says, “I like those lines. She’s being honest about her love and how it comes from their relationship, not flattery.”

            “She’s also describing how difficult it is to put true love into verbal form.” Nezumi lifts his gaze from the page and immediately sees that Shion is looking at him. His eyes are like a blood red moon, dark and deep, as if they’re trying to absorb the entire world in their small circumference. Shion hasn’t moved an inch away from Nezumi, still close and intently focused. He’s so captivating this way, the depth and breadth of him, the way he’s so straightforward and genuine.

            “I don’t think it’s that difficult. Maybe if you’re overextending yourself like Goneril or Regan. Or if you’re untrusting like Lear and value eloquence over honesty. But in any other case, I think a simple ‘I love you’ would work.”

            Nezumi can’t help it—his breath catches in his throat as Shion says _those words_ with his eyes still locked to Nezumi’s. Shion, in all his obliviousness, doesn’t pick up on this affect at all, doesn’t even realize what he’s said. So Nezumi stumbles through words in his head and attempts to make a quick recovery and says, “Maybe for simpletons like you. Not everyone wears their heart on their sleeve like that. It can be tough to tell.”

            A small thought that sounds like Safu’s voice nags in the back of Nezumi's head, telling him: _You should tell him you like him. Now is the time. Do it, you coward._

            Shion counters with, “Only if you don’t trust the person. They don’t seem like a close family. But if they really cared for each other they’d know.”

            And any other time Nezumi would be willing to argue, would say something to challenge Shion’s optimistic naïveté. He would do it, right now, that is, if his heart wasn’t trying to choke him.

            “Trust is one-sided," he manages. "You can never get in another person’s head.”

            “But you would know. Instinctually, I mean. Feelings don’t work with logic, right? I trust Safu and you, and I know I love Safu, and,” a pause; Shion waits until Nezumi looks at him again, twines their fingers still placed on lines. His tone drops a bit, his voice low as he says, “I know I love you.”

            Nezumi is stunned; the fool actually beat him to it.

            “Copying Cordelia now, are we?” he finds himself saying, in spite of everything. “Jeez, was that a confession? It was pretty bad, if you ask me—mentioning some other girl in the same sentence—”

            “Nezumi,” Shion says. “I mean it. I do. I find myself drawn to you. And, um, I wasn’t even planning on saying that…but there it is.”

            For yet another countless time today Nezumi is speechless. Here is the fool who can disarm him, can take away Nezumi’s most treasured weapon, who can so easily dissolve him with the sharpness of his eyes and the strength of his soul. How he goes from serious and eloquent to sheepish and simple in a matter of seconds; how he’s charming regardless.

            And for all the hundreds of lines on the page before them Nezumi can’t think of a good line to respond with, of anything to match the heartfelt directness of Shion’s confession. So he lifts his hand—the one that’s not still laced with Shion’s fingers—and lifts it to the other boy’s chin, likes he’s done so many other times with different people, but this time he leans in with the same assuredness that he felt from Shion’s words as he presses his lips to Shion’s.

They are soft and still, and when Nezumi pulls away, slowly lifting his eyelids open, he sees Shion is cherry-red, eyes as wide as his now-open mouth. Shion appears to be the one speechless now, for his mouth makes a few soundless movements before he says:

“You can’t do that.”

“Do what?” Nezumi prompts teasingly.

“Just kiss me like that… _in the library_ —”

“Says the boy making profound public declarations of love.”

“That’s not—”

“‘I’m drawn to you,’ he says.”

“That’s not fair.” Shion is flustered now, blushing even more of a fruity red, and Nezumi loves how easy he is to tease. But he also knows that Shion did just seriously tell Nezumi he loved him, and although Nezumi is still recovering from the shock he’s aware that he was planning on doing the same thing and would not like to have been made fun of for it.

So he says, “Me, too.”

“You, what?”

“I feel the same, your majesty; ‘according to my bond, no more nor less.’”

He releases Shion’s hand, and Shion, still staring at him, unconsciously moves it to his chest over his heart. “I’m glad,” he sighs, relieved. “I was worried for a second.”

“But I thought you trusted me.”

“I do. I always do. But you were being pretty mean.”

“Apologies.” And the desire to kiss him wells up in Nezumi again; he wants to touch him, wrap around him, run his fingers down his back and everywhere else; but now is not the time, and he doesn’t want to overindulge or overload Shion right off the bat, so he settles for a quick cheek kiss, then leans back and crosses his arms behind his head. “So. _King Lear_?”

“You’ve got to be kidding me.”

“We’ll call it a day. We can hang out in my dorm.”

Shion nods, pleased, and puts the book back in his bag. As they stand Shion reaches out for Nezumi’s hand and gently takes it. Nezumi’s automatic reaction is to protest, but he allows it, and leads him out the back door.

For the first time in a long time, he’s willing to accept this kind of goodness for himself, this requited love of Shion’s, if it means he gets be around Shion more and more.

He squeezes Shion’s hand, which is warm and soft in his, and leads him back to his dorm.


End file.
